The 193-member body criticised its own UN Security Council for failing to halt the bloodshed in Syria.

It condemned "the increasing use by the Syrian authorities of heavy weapons, including indiscriminate shelling from tanks and helicopters, in population centres and the failure to withdraw its troops and the heavy weapons to their barracks."

"The conflict in Syria is a test of everything this organisation stands for. I do not want today's United Nations to fail that test," said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

The UN chief regretted the divisions among the countries in the Security Council which blocked the resolution so far and urged nations to consider the immediate future of Syrians.

"All of us have a responsibility to the people of Syria. We must use all of the peaceful means in the UN Charter to help them unite around a Syrian-led transition process that is based on dialogue and compromise, not bullets and arrests.

But their [regime's] refusal to lay down arms does not absolve the rest of us of the need to act. I urge all members of this Assembly to face up to the collective responsibilities we shoulder," said the Secretary-General.

Russia along with China, Syria, North Korea and eight others voted against the resolution.

Russian envoy to the UN Vitaly Churkin said the text was blatant support for the armed opposition.

Churkin said Moscow regrets that the resolution "only aggravates confrontational approaches to the resolution of the Syrian crisis, doing nothing to facilitate dialogue between the parties." He added the text was drafted as if the armed opposition did not exist at all.